Outline of the April 18th Lecture / A. Ersoy

The Cult of Progress


“Progress,” among the most prestigious and cherished notions of the modern world, remains an essential ingredient of how we experience the world and situate ourselves vis-a-vis the past and the future.

Informed by modern notions of temporality (by modern conceptions of change and progress), we tend to envision the entire history of the universe and of mankind as a linear, directional development – History, in other words, is envisioned as the history of progress that culminates with the emergence of the modern world.

The modern sense of directionality in time (as linear, open ended development – as a constant advance from a primitive past to a sophisticated present) is a novel concoction and a significant legacy of the Enlightenment.

In the pre-modern world, it was the past (as tradition) that guided human actions in the present, and shaped the hopes for the future – the past was the center of reference and authority.
With the advent of modern consciousness (and with the accompanying sense of rupture and irreversable break separating present modality from the organic continuities and traditions of the past), it is the future that starts governing the life of the present and the evaluation of the past – the future, now, becomes the ultimate center of authority and legitimation.

In the wake of the Enlightenment (with the waning of traditional authority and the rising prestige of secularized knowledge), the old and inextricable harmony between religion and knowledge is shattered, and large areas of thought are insulated from the direct influence of older, more religiously / ethically oriented beliefs in human destiny.
The implication of this (in terms of the status of man in the universe) is that, within this new setting, human destiny is understood to be shaped by the impersonal, complex and empirically observable laws of nature, and not regarded as a religious / ethical journey to salvation (the order of the universe is not indexed to the destiny and ordeal of man – indexed to concepts such as creation, judgement and salvation). Therefore, the traditional primacy of man, his pivotal and privileged position (as the center of the universe, the purpose of all being) is annihilated with the rise of secular knowledge and the modern sciences.
This traumatic downfall (of man losing his privilege as the purpose of the universal order, being reduced to the status of “one species among many”) engendered alternative models and strategies of thought that attempted to endow history with a new sense of purpose, continuity and directionality – now attuned to the premises of secularized knowledge. This new and secular vision of historical purpose and continuity is hinged upon the very idea of progress.
Within this new conception of change, what moves and animates history is man himself (rather than a divine plan and authority). With his superior capacity of rational knowledge and reason, man has the ability to create his own salvation, to emancipate humanity from the tyrannies of nature, the dark forces of error and superstition. Man is, therefore, reinserted at the center of history (to a new privileged position) as the instigator of progress. A new teleology emerges (a purposeful movement towards a predestined end), whereby man takes destiny in his hands, and transforms the world around him towards greater perfection, towards a better and more sophisticated future. Hence, the modern narrative of progress becomes almost a secular religion or a cult; a grand explanatory model for every possible action and event.

By the nineteenth century, firmly entrenced as a concept, progress engendered diverse models and narratives of change in philosophy, arts, and the natural and human sciences.
Among the most influential theories of progress is the theory of the Prussian thinker Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). In Hegel’s “historical philosophy,” the moving element (progress) is characterised by a “spiritual direction” shaped by the inner drives and urges of human nature. Historical change, therefore, is the story of the fulfillment of the “spiritual aim,” which is “complete freedom.” In the deterministic / teleological scheme of Hegel, all human activities and events are, thus, parts of a grand design, a linear spiritual direction towards the progressive fulfillment of freedom.
For Hegel, this progressive unfolding of the spirit has three stages, based on the level of freedom achieved. The first stage is the “Ancient world,” (which also encompasses the contemporary Orient) where only the tyrants are free. The second stage is the “Medieval world,” where only a few (the nobility) enjoy freedom. The third and the most developed final stage to be reached is the “modern order,” where everybody enjoys freedom. This stage is made possible within what Hegel considers to be the most sophisticated form of social and political organization: the nation state.

The lasting legacy of Hegel’s theory pertains to the idea that progress is realized with the “dialectic movement of opposites,” where “conflict,” as an essential element, lies at the very center of change and improvement. In this model history is considered to be a stage for the progressive conflict of opposing ideas as steps towards the fulfillment of a higher stage of development. Here, every force is coupled by its opposition, and every “thesis” at any point is matched by an “antithesis.” Neither side ever wins (so there is never a complete revolution in the realm of ideas and actions), but the clash of the thesis and the antithesis are resolved by a stage of “synthesis.” The beauty of the theory is that each phase contains within itself the sources of its own dissolution. Thus, history is regarded as an open ended process of continuous “becoming,” a gradual, synthetic movement towards more articulate ideas and formulations that shape and animate the world.

Hegelian determinism and dialectics constitutes a lasting contribution to human thought, informing many theories of change, as well as agendas of national, political progress, emancipation and superiority. It had a profound impact on the Marxist vision of history (with its logic of dialectical movement and conflict), as well as on the positivistic philosophy of A. Comte (1798-1857), who, like Hegel, proposed a three-stage model of historical progress that culminated with the “positive stage of thought” (where human beings would be completely emancipated from the constraining boundaries of tradition and religion).

In the area of natural sciences, it was again the idea of progress, with the patterns of thought and cultural predilections that it entailed, that made possible the emergence of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection – which, in turn, provided a strong model and principal of change (and progress) in many fields such as politics, economy, anthropology, history, art. Following the publication of the Origin of the Species in 1859, Darwin’s views on evolution, natural selection, and “the survival of the fittest” were taken out of context by policy makers (for instance in the colonies) and appropriated into myriad theories of “social Darwinism,” usually preaching progressive agendas of subjugation, control, discrimination and supremacy. Darwinism, and its strong emphasis on the idea of progress and evolution as natural facts, was used to devise and legitimize colonializing strategies, and Eurocentric, fascistic, discriminatory and genocidal agendas (disseminating ideas of “weak races” that need to be controlled, civilized or eliminated).

In all, the modern vision of time, based on the idea of progress (with its open ended, anti-establishment drive favoring open-ended, forward movement), carried a critical and emancipatory potential, and had imprints on many “progressive” movements throughout the modern era, such as the French Revolution, the civil rights and feminist movements or anti-colonialism.
Yet, it was also the “grand narratives of progress” (and their accompanying social projects) that harnessed utterly catastrophic, oppressive or violent results for the world (ecological disasters) and humanity (the idea of total war, the Holocaust).

Thus, following the traumas of the Second World War, the grand narratives and the broad and progressive explanatory paradigms of the modern world lost their superior status and prestige. While many deep and underlying cultural predispositions related to the modern sense of time, change and progress linger on.